1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to harvesting performed by a tree-fruit harvester carried by a vehicle and in particular, to equipment for deflecting harvested fruit away from the vehicle.
2. Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,695 granted to Zehavi et al., hereafter '695, for a tree shaking and harvesting apparatus is hereby incorporated by reference in whole. In the disclosure, Zehavi et al. present a tilted-plane face 18 for collecting and for guiding the harvested fruit, with an extension of steel rods 22. When in field use, the steel rods 22 vibrated severely and broken in collision with obstacles. Collisions of rods 22 with low-hanging branches and other obstacles currently occur. Sometimes, rather small twigs give way to the forces moving the rods 22 and the shaker 10, which forces are applied by a powerful hydraulic jack. Most of the time, a rigid obstacle, such as a tree-trunk, roots protruding out of the ground, or a big low-hanging branch, will resist the motion of the rods 22 that are then irreparably damaged.
Obviously, the equipment made of steel, is reinforced for better collision survival, but then, inevitably, becomes heavier. Being mounted in overhang alongside the vehicle, as are the oscillation units 15a and 15b, the vehicle becomes heavily destabilized, which is a second problem. Further, the sturdily reinforced equipment suffers from the rather violet vibrations of the oscillation units, and tends to develop cracks the propagate quickly until total failure.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,065 to Compton, the same problem is solved by adding extensions to fruit catch platforms 38 provided to collect harvested fruit. For example, seal panel 54, is operated by rams 58 that are lowered for harvesting and raised afterwards. Such a solution copes with collisions in a rather complex and expensive manner. Furthermore, it is left to the operator to remember to operate the seal panels in the proper sequence so as to avoid mutual collision.
There are thus many problems to overcome before the introduction in the field of a practical harvested fruit collector for use the tree-harvesting equipment.